Faith and Salvation

Historically, Sola Fide is an answer to the question "How are we saved?" At the time of the Reformation it was given to make clear that works, whether our own or those of the saints, can do nothing to save us. The Catholic Church had added so many things believers had to do in order to be saved, including a half-way house (called purgatory) that it was considered to be nearly impossible to get to heaven. Only the saints could go straight there, all the rest had to wait in Purgatory until there was enough in the treasury of faith to set the soul free. Some of the things which could fill up the treasury were: masses, penances, pilgrimages, specific prayers and indulgences (the latter were able to be bought). It was this whole system that the Reformers regarded as negating the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the proclamation of which they saw as the true reason for the Church's existence.

Also, historically, there were originally only three "solas," Sola Scriptura, Sola fide, Sola Gratia. The other two, nearly always included today, were implicit in the way the Reformers viewed things and were unchallenged in the new Protestant Churches - Solo Christo and Soli Deo Gloria. They were each formulated as answers to errors in the Church of the time. They set forth the role of Scripture, as the arbiter of belief; faith, as the means through which we gain our salvation; grace, as the reason why God saves anyone; Christ, as the person through whom we are saved and God's glory, as the purpose for our salvation and, indeed, the whole of history.

In the past, when considering our topic, we would have looked together at the role assigned by false Churches to works. Then, in contrast, we would have explained how the Holy Spirit applies Christ's work for our benefit, making it clear that God works faith in us rather than something we offer to him. We would have discussed Sin, the New Birth, Conversion and touched on sanctification. However, since the 16th Century, there have been changes to the way people view at the world and it has become necessary to add a few extra steps to the discussion. Each of the factors (listed below) affects our view of faith and salvation which we need to explore. We begin with reasoning.

1. Faith is rational. During the Reformation era, Reason was believed to be theologically biased. The basis of Calvin and the other Reformers' insistence that the will was not free was because they understood sin to have corrupted the whole man. This meant that man cannot think anything, speak anything or meditate on anything or even do anything to God's glory, unless he is born again.

People today need to know Christianity is not a "feel good," "act as if" religion. It is not designed primarily to provide us with an emotional buzz or help us cope with the random nature of the universe. Christianity, isn't even man-centered, it's God-centered. When it comes to thinking and rational thought, therefore, Christianity begins with God. It is his character as a God of order that allows us to even frame orderly thoughts, the basis for all intellectual pursuits. It is, we acknowledge, a position taken on the basis of faith; faith in the Creator God; faith that he has spoken to man and those words have been recorded in the Bible and faith that what God says to man is true.

From the Bible the Christian learns everything was created as an integrated system - "God saw everything he had made and behold it was very good." God ordained that man's decisions will have consequences - the world before the flood was destroyed because of the wickedness of men's hearts. The sun "rises" in the East because God makes the Earth turn toward the east - if he slows the rate of turn the day is prolonged. If we decide to bang our head against a wall, God has ordained we will hurt ourselves.

The events and the decisions do not produce random results; they are predictable because God has made them to operate that way. Miracles - such as turning water into wine - are a suspension of God's ordinary processes in nature. The non-Christian has to find a source for logic and order based on their belief in something other than the God of Scripture. That position is reached by faith in something, thereafter the process of accounting for the universe has to use God's established order to develop the process. So, whether Christian or non-Christian, the very first step in reasoning rests on faith in someone or something which cannot be proven by reasoning alone.

Thereafter all reasoning has to be circular. We start with a basis for reasoning which we accept by faith. Then, as we investigate the universe we live in, we encounter facts which demand an interpretation so we can make a coherent view of the world we live in. So we build an interpretive framework for understanding reality. When we meet with facts we do not understand we either find an explanation which allows us to fit them into our framework or count them as insignificant if we can't find an appropriate explanation. We justify counting them as insignificant since we believe the anomalies are few. The framework, built from our original belief and the preponderance of "facts," interpreted in the light of that belief, is used to test further facts and events. Then we state that our framework is sound because it "fits the facts."

This is a statement of faith, which rests on our belief that we have interpreted all the facts correctly. If we are being completely honest we admit we cannot know all the facts nor tell exactly how each is related to the whole and our framework is one theory to explain reality. People are seldom that honest, or (if they are) they may just assume you realize it's one theory of reality. Our understanding is finite after all and the details too numerous for it to be anything else.

Yet the process outlined above is circular whether we begin with faith in God or faith in our own abilities to discover the universe unaided. Briefly reviewed the circle is: Original belief, investigation to gather facts and form a framework, provide an explanation for those "few" facts which seem to fall outside the framework, and proclamation that the framework fits the facts. Thereafter we defend the framework as if it is fact (because, to us, it is).

The only difference between a Christian's framework and that of the non-Christian is the initial starting belief. The Christian claims his rests on the word of the God who first created everything and not on unaided reason. This means that although he believes all creation speaks of God he is not obliged to be able to find an explanation of how every individual fact fits into the framework. He can even accept anomalies as possibly being significant because, though he doesn't know everything, God does. So, when Christians say we are "saved by faith alone" we imply our faith is based on the Bible's view of the God who both created and sustains the universe. Recognizing God has established the order we see around us, we know our faith does not preclude reason, it establishes it.

Go to Part II